Rumpkin | Avery Brewing Company

Notes / Commercial Description:
We wondered what would happen if a monstrous pumpkin ale, plump full of spicy gourdiness, were aged in fine fresh rum barrels to add suggestions of delicate oak and candied molasses. Rumpkin is what happened! This first member of the Annual Barrel-Aged Series was brewed with roasted pumpkins from a local Boulder County farm, and spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger.

Reviews by JayQue:

A great over-the-top Avery beer. Pours a hazy orange/amber with a medium size light beige head on a hard pour from a 12 oz bottle into a pint glass. Head retention and lacing are just about non-existent, as you would expect from a 15.9% abv beer.

Aroma is good. Cinnamon and allspice, rum, caramel malt, and a little oak.

Flavor is the same. The alcohol is very present but it is not overpowering. Sweet caramel malts, cinnamon, allspice, pumpkin and oak are all present in a boozy concoction.

Mouthfeel is rich and spicy. The alcohol fall just short of off-putting, adds some warmth and a little bite.

More User Reviews:

A delight of a desert beer, designed and crafted very well for the cooler Autumn season.

Rumkin pours with a lightly carbonated mohogany redish-brown color and good clarity. Early froathy head formation eventually falters underneath the weight of alcohol and savory sweetness.

Spiced rum hits the nose with a mellow and rich scent. Elements of molassas, toasty, light chocolate, and pumkin pie spice round out the rum/barrel woodiness very well. Very appetizing and mouth watering.

Even more intense is the flavor; where the Porter-ish flaovor of toast, chocolate, nutty, and coffee flavors apply the initial flavor. Sweet rum flavor develops the Porter flavors into more congac and port wine richness and layers. Chocolate and pumpkin pie linger into the long and sweet finish and give a lasting impression in the aftertaste.

Rich, oily and weighted- Rumkin drinks much like a well aged Barleywine with a silky smooth sweet feel. No dryness or fleeting progression, this beer doesn't need it, Rumkin is a desert all to itself.

Surprisingly, the beer's own sweetness develops its into layers upon layers of complexity and substitutes balance very well. Savory and succulent throughout.

Appearance: Pours a clear copper color and, of course, the younger beer has better head retention, at first, but both heads fritter away after about 30 seconds; not surprising, given the ABV

Smell: The rum is much more apparent in the younger version as is the spicing, but the older version has more depth of pumpkin aromatics

Taste: The pie spice, caramel sweetness and rum pounce on the tastebuds in the younger version but the older version is more mellow, bringing a complex melding of the spices, the rum and the pumpkin; a lot of warmth in the gullet from the younger version bursts forward and interrupts the flavor development while the complexity builds in its older sibling, with the warmth in that one settling deep in the belly

Mouthfeel: Full bodied with low carbonation and plenty of boozy warmth

Overall: Not sure why this beer has to have such a high ABV but it was very interesting to sample these two beers side by side; at first, I thought the younger version far superior as it forced itself upon the palate; after a few sips, I found myself returning again and again to the older version as it only revealed its complexity with the passage of time

Thanks, RuckusDu, for the 2013 version and I cannot recall the source of the older bottle but thanks go out to whomever shared it with me if indeed I got it from a trade

This sweet treat was right up my ally. There is no hint whatsoever that this is a 16% beer. To me, this tastes like a pumpkin barleywine. Smooth and mellow, with a rum sweetness lingering on the palate. Very enjoyable.

look: Crystal clear orange brown...noble pumpkin i say. Full off white head on the pour that entirely exits.
smell: Aromatic spices, oak and rum brightness and to quote the Avery site, " candied molasses" indeed.
taste: Much like the nose. If Willy Wonka were a lush, he'd make this at every holiday.

Avery says this is a porter, made with pumpkin, and aged in rum barrels.

I'd say it's more like a barleywine ... a very potent concoction, on the sweet side. The aroma is huge (and I know I don't have the most sensitive sniffer, so for me to really get knocked out by the aroma, it's got some oomph!).

Drinking this one year after bottling, the ABV was strong, but appropriately so. The 17.22% (who knew you could have 2 decimal places in an ABV?) is part and parcel of the overall barleywine effect, and fits in well with the other components of the ale.

The flavor is a well balanced blend of pumpkin (in the background), roasted notes, rum, typical spices, and some sweetness. I did not find it to be syrupy sweet.

I had one bottle, shared with 3 friends, so we each had just a small snifter. That was plenty, and it was very enjoyable. I wouldn't drink this often, but it is certainly memorable.

On tap at Blue Palms Brewhouse in Los Angeles, CA as part of their Jingle Bell Jubilee.

Pours a murky orange-brown with a 1/2 inch tan head that settles to a film on the top of the beer. Random dots of lace line the glass on the drink down. Smell is of malt, spices, pumpkin, rum, and wood. A very nice barrel aged aroma on this one. Taste is of malt, sugar and spice (cinnamon and the like), graham crackers, rum, and wood. The pumpkin is there but very subtle in my opinion. This beer has a nice level of carbonation with crisp and sticky mouthfeel. Overall, this is a great pumpkin beer that turned out extremely well with the rum barrel aging.

A tiny suspended particles in a copper body, lots of big bubbles much to my surprise, the two fingers of foam makes some noise as it quickly fizzles out, some thin legs on the glass and enough carbonation to make it look like a slow boil

T it mimics the smell but the booze is cranked up and more wood then rum, its still not drinking like a 18% monster but you definitely know its got some ABV, its like a rum spiked pumpkin beer and its pretty solid

M silky and hot, some tannin like grit, hard to judge mouth-feel when it hits your chest and head before anything, just a little sticky on my numb lips, spicy, woody heat just keep going

O what jacks you up more then steroids? this is a pumpkin beer on whatever that is and then some, powerful, subtle, harsh and gentle all at once, this shit could ruin anyone who let it

Hard to say if this is a little fresh for such a big boy, its drinking well but could probably benefit from a decade under the stairs. Intense all around and well rounded, different and jacked up in every way, seek this one out.

S- Holy rum booze and pumpkin spices. Lots of cinnamon and nutmeg that is still dominated by the white sugary sweet base beer. Kind of hard to get the nuances of this beer. [3.75]

F- Rum booze, cinnamon, nutmeg, cider-like tartness. But this is very rum-forward. I definitely feel drunk after tasting an ounce of this beer. [3.75]

M- Full bodied, thick and sugary. Strong body, strong booziness. I can't even begin to imagine how much malt they used to brew this. Sugary sweet and hot finish on this one. [3.5]

O- Definitely a flavour intense pumpkin beer, but its not exactly what I'm looking for in a pumpkin beer, especially not at the price point it sells for. The booze quotient is extremely high in this one, as is the diabeetus quotient. This 12oz bottle is definitely best split with multiple people. [4]

A- Dark, opaque, brown and orange.
S- Rum, Rum, and more rum. If there is pumpkin in there it's hard to pick up on. Still delicious!
T- I get a hint of pumpkin ale but dominated by rum. Maybe bc this is from 2014 and the pumpkin has faded.
M- GREAT carb for such a heavy barrel aged beer. Very impressed!
D- One and done but makes a SUPERB sipper. I hope that I can trade for more!